Educational Media Reviews Online

The multimedia CD Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities is designed for a high school level audience and offers users the full-text of the novel and provides additional historical and biographical materials, as well as internet links and bibliographies for further research.

The CD is designed for use on a single PC or Mac and networking the title is discouraged in the "readme" file provided on the CD. This user carefully followed the instructions provided on the CD insert but still found it impossible to properly install and run the software on her PC. QuickTime software, necessary for viewing the video clips, is included on the CD, yet despite installation according to directions, every startup of the software on the PC resulted in an error message asking that I either install QuickTime or insert the CD into the proper drive (both of which had already been done). Thus I was unable to ever view the video clips on my PC. (Note: on this count the "readme" file was useless, as it included inaccurate information about installing and running the software on Windows 95). On the Mac I ran the software directly off the CD and it worked perfectly.

Once running, the interface is attractive and well designed with judicious use of icons, clickable links and pop-up information activated by waving the cursor over "hot" parts of the page. Navigation is made easy by the presence of menu icons such as "main menu," "previous screen," and "search" which appear in the same place on each page.

The text itself is organized as in any print edition and is easy to read, presented in a large font in a scrollable text box. The editors have, surprisingly, opted not to take advantage of the hypertextual capabilities of the medium in the presentation of the text itself. This CD would have greatly benefited from in-text links to maps of the "two cities," illustrations of some of the historical locations and objects mentioned (most notably the Bastille and the guillotine ), glossing for some words or historical references, etc. There aren't even in-text links to the chapter notes provided.

The explanatory and support materials vary in usefulness. More successful are the video dramatizations of key scenes, the video clips of two scholars briefly addressing some key questions related to the text, a bibliography of additional literary criticism, and a TV and filmography. Editors have provided Internet links to Dickens sites on the web, and it is reassuring to see a link to the Dickens page on George P. Landow's Victorian Web project (Brown University). However, the inclusion of a link to their own Cromwell Productions web site seems nothing more than a commercial plug, as the site presently has no research value.

Dickens's own life and times are adequately well treated, with a brief time line biography accompanied by a time line of historical events, an introduction to and quite a few illustrations from the Victorian period. However, there is a shocking lack of information about the time during which the events in the novel take place. Except for the exceedingly brief textual notes, no background information about the French Revolution is provided! Nor is there a map of Paris, though, were it included, it might not have been any more useful than the map of London, which is buried in the "Dickens his life and works" section and is extremely schematic (19 streets and only 6 geographical sites are marked). This lack of historical context for the narrative events is all the more problematic because the user, confronted with a quantity of material about the Victorian era and none on the late 1700's may very well take the novel's events to be contemporaneous with Dickens's life.

The CD is accompanied by a most annoying sound track: an inexplicable choice -- Beethoven's 5th symphony and parts of a piano sonata. While the sound can be deactivated with a click of the space bar, it persistently re-appears with every new screen. Why Beethoven? Why his 5th symphony? Why won't the music go away and stay away?

Several caveats for the potential buyer:

1. The software occupies the entire screen (it doesn't tile or cascade within the operating system screen) and other programs running under Windows are only accessible by pressing the alt and tab buttons (on the Mac, hold down the apple and tab buttons).
2. Printing is available only on selected screens and users cannot cut text and paste it into another document (a problem for note taking and citing, as students will be forced to hand-write from the screen).
3. There are some typos in the novel text and play script of the dramatizations.

Given the skewed historical coverage, some of the odd editorial decisions, and the installation problems on the PC, this CD is recommended only with reservations. To be an effective educational tool, the CD material will need to be supplemented with a good deal more targeted background information to aid students in understanding the novel.